Happy Monday! I’m here with Holly and I hope you’ll link up with us for Hello Monday! I usually share our weekend, but today I am asking for some suggestions! We are stuck in a rut and are looking for some changes.
I try to make dinner most nights. It is usually healthier, cheaper, and fits our busy schedule better. I plan our meals on the weekend and schedule a grocery pickup for the next day. Here’s our plan for this week.
It’s a schedule that works for us, but I am struggling to come up with ideas. We buy a portion of a cow every spring so I have a good stock of ground beef and steaks/roasts in the freezer. I try to use chicken at least twice a week because it’s pretty healthy and my family will eat it with minimal complaint. Jeff is gluten free, but I am getting pretty good at adapting recipes. 2 pound bags of shrimp are always on sale with a coupon you can use once at our grocery store so I get one each week and we have shrimp every other week. I try to make recipes that will have leftovers for lunch for Jeff and/or me.
Now, this is where you come in. What are you making for dinner these days? Where do you go to find recipes and ideas? Pinterest overwhelms me and there is no guarantee that the recipe is yummy. Do you have any crockpot favorites that don’t get mushy? Feel free to share a link or a recipe in the comments. Please!! I can’t wait to see what your favorites are. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Don’t forget to link up below if you blogged today. I’ll be back tomorrow with some favorite online finds. Have a great day full of sunshine and books!
I am trying to do soup on Sunday, pasta on Monday, Mexican on Tuesday, Asian on Wednesday, and whatever I feel like on Thursday. Slender Kitchen website has meals that my whole family have enjoyed and I think you could make them gluten free or healthier for the adults. The website is super user friendly and just having one go to site for me helps!
I am trying to stay out of the store the rest of January and I have tacos, spaghetti, black bean lasagna, Montreal chicken (just put montreal steak seasoning on top), unstuffed chicken cordon bleu, bacon tomato pasta, quesadillas, teriyaki chicken with broccoli and cauliflower rice on my list for the next week and a half-ish.
I like the idea of theme nights. It does make it easier to plan. I need to checkout Slender Kitchen. The food you share from that website looks delicious!!
I am so intrigued by buying a part of a cow. Is it a good investment? Do you find you save money doing that? I need some more info 🙂 I typically meal plan on Sundays for the week and trying to combine healthy with things my kids will actually eat- easier said than done. Typically it is a some kind of chicken a few times/week, beef maybe once/week and they love pasta and tacos. I try to get a veggie, fruit or salad in every night too
I buy the cow from a friend I went to middle and high school with. I don’t think it is any cheaper than buying meat from the grocery store. In fact it may be a little more expensive than regular beef. However, it’s nice to know that the cow is living a healthy life – roaming the fields, eating what cows should be eating, not getting medicines or hormones, and it tastes so much better. We go back and forth between buying 1/8 of a cow and 1/4 of a cow. The 1/4 was a little more than we needed in a year, but 1/8 isn’t quite enough. I ended up buying a bunch of ground beef that they had from a different cow to supplement this year. I love having it on hand and knowing where the beef came from.
Monday’s we are starting doing crockpot meals with crazy schedules. Normally it is a soup or pasta in the crockpot. Tuesday is always tacos the meat changes each week, Wednesday I try to do fish or shrimp. Thursday leftover, Friday is local take out. saturday is no rhyme or reason, and Sunday we are getting back into the habit of a comfort home cook meal. yesterday we had lasagna
Do you have Shay’s crockpot book (simmers?) it’s a life saver. I know what you mean though…sometimes I feel like we’re in a rut too!
I don’t have that cookbook. I’ll have to look for it.
I totally feel you on how hard it gets to find recipes some days! It does get overwhelming. We made this homemade hamburger helper the other night, I tweaked it a little from the original recipe. https://mandyjoyloves.com/2023/01/18/homemade-hamburger-helper/
That looks delicious! Thanks!
Easy weeknight meals for us (and my husband is GF too so I get it!!) – I see you have meatballs – I do ours with oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs and serve as sandwiches (GF buns for him) or alongside cheese lasagna (GF noodles for him). The simplest sheet pan meal I make is Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, onions, and potatoes. . .roast the onions and potatoes for 40 mins then add cut-up sausage for the last 15 minutes (just to warm through). I generally make fried eggs to go on top/mix in with this. Stir fry is always, always a favorite as is a sausage breakfast casserole with GF bread. Lately I’ve been poaching chicken breasts in the crockpot (6 hours on high – just chicken breasts and some chicken broth) and then shredding and keeping in the fridge. Chicken tacos, chicken salad, quesadillas, chicken/cheese/rice. Chili is always a favorite with grilled cheese :). And then we make baked potatoes the following night and use the leftover chili, cheese, onions, etc on those. We are not a huge shrimp family, but if I make shrimp to go in rice bowls that usually gets a thumbs-up. Flank steak is another super easy thing to do — we sous vide our meat then throw it on the grill to brown — slice thinly for rice bowls or serve on salads. Please e-mail me if you’d like any specific recipes — I created a cookbook for Christmas for all my kids and most of these recipes are in it :). Family favorites!
Thanks for all the ideas! I’ve never tried oatmeal in meatballs, I usually make them without any extras. I’ll try the oatmeal for sure.
I’m sorry I don’t have any great ideas. We eat mostly vegetarian and I find that my menu planning is easier when I go with theme nights — Soup on Sundays, Taco Tuesdays, etc.